Trey Anastasio Quotes

In theatre, you learn the story is more important than the actor.

A stage play is basically a form of uber-schizophrenia. You split yourself into two minds - one being the protagonist and the other being the antagonist. The playwright also splits himself into two other minds: the mind of the writer and the mind of the audience.

Fans want to see a story with characters, and they want to see a story.

In a lot of ways, TV writing taught me how to be a good storyteller. I learned about dialogue, scenes, moving the plot forward.

Definitely the script because you want to be part of an interesting story, you want your character to be a challenge, then comes the director. But essentially it's the script first and whether it's a character that you think you can do.

As much as most of the actors were kind of curious to know what their character meant in relation to the script and to the plot, they really were quite happy to be part of the adventure of not knowing.

I think all television has to be about relationships and I don't think horror for the sake of it can work unless you're able to ground it in some kind of relationship.

All fiction is about people, unless it's about rabbits pretending to be people. It's all essentially characters in action, which means characters moving through time and changes taking place, and that's what we call 'the plot'.

A lot of crime writing suffers from treading water. I feel an obligation to move the character on and not repeat myself. I try to fit him into a different period and a different agenda. That way, you learn slightly more about his personal history in the tradition of the unreliable narrator. It makes it more challenging to write.

Whether you're writing a horror show or a James Bond film, I think what bubbles beneath is interesting characterization. The colors that emerge through storytelling is what a dramatist does. There's always got to be something bubbling underneath that will erupt at some point.

I'm all about the story. If I like the character and I think the story's entertaining, I'll do it.

Any show I'm working on, I want the stories to always be about something, and to have the potential to be emotional. That's the kind of story that I like.

Not only a great game, 'Uncharted 2' raised the bar for storytelling for the medium. The game treated action as a part of the overall story rather than a way to move from plot point to plot point.

The opera tells the story with all the built-in contradictions and from many different angles.

'The Piano Lesson' is very sophisticated, easily the most adult or complex material I've attempted. It's the first film I've written that has a proper story, and it was a big struggle for me to write. It meant I had to admit the power of narrative.

In order to deliver the emotional truth in the story, you have to include some of the literal truth.

An author's characters do what he wants them to do.

Big stories need human stakes.

Whenever you can manoeuvre your characters into a situation where they both have a good argument to make, you're on the right track.

I'm just a sucker for a good script.

Reading a play, you view yourself as part of a whole. You see where the whole thing is going, and so you're willing to go to the very ugly place that your heart may go in order to serve the whole.

In a story, you have to have a theme and an angle, you have to have a beginning, middle and an end. You have to have a defining moment and kick it to death. You gotta be able to recognize that, by the way. It probably takes experience.

'Ender's Game' has fabulous opportunities for spectacle, where appropriate, but there's also a tremendous central character. It's a balance.

As an actor, I think a mistake that any storyteller can make is to play the ending.

Now I can't wait to write my next play.